NEWS FEATURE: Catholic community heeds call of the wild

c. 1999 Religion News Service PARADISE, Mich. _ In woods near Lake Superior, miles from electrical wires or paved roads, a group of Catholics is building a vision from logs, lumber, tools and sweat. Two men and a boy run an old sawmill, its 40-inch blade powered by an aging gasoline engine. Others nail sheathing […]

c. 1999 Religion News Service

PARADISE, Mich. _ In woods near Lake Superior, miles from electrical wires or paved roads, a group of Catholics is building a vision from logs, lumber, tools and sweat.

Two men and a boy run an old sawmill, its 40-inch blade powered by an aging gasoline engine. Others nail sheathing on a half-finished cabin or use power tools, plugged into a generator, to smooth cedar logs. Another group prepares lunch for the workers.


The Rev. Jack Fabian moves through the bustling scene, pointing out work still to come.

Then, through the tall pines, a bell tolls. Machinery falls silent as men and women recite a prayer:”The Angel of the Lord declared unto Mary,”And she conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit.”Hail, Mary, full of grace …” This is the noon Angelus, a centuries-old tradition in Roman Catholic religious communities.

It is part of the daily routine in the Chippewa County woodlands, where a group called Companions of Christ the Lamb is building a Catholic religious order on a foundation of simple living, wilderness retreats, mystical spirituality and traditional Roman Catholic ceremony.

The effort began a decade ago with revelations reported by members of a Detroit-area parish where Fabian was pastor in the 1980s and early ’90s.

Since then, the group has grown to 120 members, purchased 960 acres along the Shelldrake River in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (it was coincidence that the property they chose had a”Paradise”address), and completed a log chapel and other buildings.

The complex has a communal kitchen and eating area, rustic toilet and shower facilities, 10″hermitage”rooms that provide spartan year-round housing for professed religious members, and a network of trails to wilderness retreat sites.

Some families have moved to homes near the center. Others come on summer vacations to work at the property or take individual retreats.


Fabian is a cheerful Detroit native who was ordained in 1968. In appearance, he could be a Motor City autoworker. But he can also sound like a New Age spiritualist as he speaks of fasting, meditation, communing with nature and escaping the”clutter”of modern life.

Some accused him of forming a cult when his group began coming together 10 years ago. But he insists his view of spirituality fits with 2,000 years of Catholic tradition.”I just saw so many people going to New Age stuff who didn’t know what (the Catholic Church) offered,”he says.”When you look at the history of God’s people, they were formed in the desert. In the wilderness … you learn to respect the Creator and you get more reverent than ever.” In Catholic terminology, Companions of Christ the Lamb is an”association of the faithful.”That’s a lower classification than a religious order, such as the Missionaries of Charity, the order founded in 1948 by Mother Teresa.”An association of the faithful could be considered the initial step on the path to becoming a religious order,”said Richard Laskos, a public relations associate with the Archdiocese of Detroit.

Laskos said Fabian is on full-time assignment from the archdiocese to work with the Companions.

The Companions have their roots in St. Charles Parish in Newport in southeastern Michigan, where Fabian was pastor from 1982 to 1994.

Fabian says he was skeptical when women in his congregation began reporting personal messages from God in the late ’80s. His doubts vanished in the spring of 1989 when a woman told him God wanted him to form a religious order.”I was so astonished that, to be honest, my first words were not appropriate for being in church,”Fabian wrote in a 60-page history of the group, published in 1998.”But I instantly knew that what she said was true, and my response was, `I know exactly what this community is to be about.'” The community has three”orders”of membership: clergy, religious brothers and sisters, and married or single laity. Fabian is the only ordained priest in the community, which has one brother, five sisters and about 120 lay members.

Members undertake annual retreats, which involve from four to 40 days living alone in a tent or other shelter, usually with a limited supply of food, a Bible and one other book.


The Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha Chapel, where Fabian says Mass each day, is fashioned from vertical cedar posts, peeled and varnished. Pine logs support a soaring roof, and windows behind the maple altar form a cross-shaped opening with a view to tall evergreens that sway in the wind.

The congregation spent two years on the building, doing virtually all the work by hand, from building the rustic pews to cutting the 40,000 cedar shingles that cover the roof.

On a tiny wooded hill, there sits a screened gazebo.

Inside, Fabian relaxes on a bench, near a statue of St. Joseph the carpenter.”It’s a place you come to pray quietly, or to meet people and talk,”the priest says, noting that the forest breeze covers most outdoor conversations.”I love to come out here and smoke a cigar,”he says.”St. Joseph joins me of course, being a guy.”

AMB END HOOGTERP

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